Friday 3rd February 2006

This week began with a visit to Staffordshire's Children's Fund, headed by Louise Stone, to learn more about the work that they do and the people that they work with. The ethos of the children's fund is about prevention, participation and partnership; these key areas that I anticipate will also be running through the type of work that I will be involved in, particularly when it comes to the involvement of children and young people in the delivery and evaluation of services.

Tuesday was en exciting day as I met with Maureen Winn-Oakley, Sandwell's Commissioner for Children. This was made all the more interesting as we talked about projects that we expect to be involved in, the developments of both Children's Trusts and also common themes for children and young people such as bullying, feeling safe, places to go and ASBOs.

Later this week I met with Mary Bentley, who is the project manager for Newcastle and Moorlands Early Implementer Areas.
This is about developing the work of the children's trust at a local level and to 'test' new ways of working for both professionals and children. Her work is driven by the Children Act legislation and developing things like a 'common assessment framework' for professionals and building a 'team around the child'. An exciting project that Mary is working with others on is the possible development of a 'young person's centre' in the Newcastle area. I will let you know of progress.

My week has ended with a visit to Di Rowbotham, a local exclusions officer, in an attempt to find out more about the process for young people who become excluded from school and what alternative provision is available to them. I learned about the 'reach' educational project for young people as well as more about Stafford's Pupil Referral Unit (PRU) and an alternative vocational based training 'e2e' at Indigo.

My introductory visit to YAK last week led to an invite to this week conference and a focus is on 2 key areas, Road Safety and self harm; both of which I will hopefully be getting involved in. I'll let you know how this goes!

Last Modified: 29/09/2006 08:29:30
Back to top